


The Longest Story Ever Told

by VICTORKISSEDYURRI



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, F/F, Genderbending, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbians Everywhere, The Gang feels, denise reynolds, little bit of mac/charlie, mac fam feels, veronica mcdonald
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 13:11:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10438449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VICTORKISSEDYURRI/pseuds/VICTORKISSEDYURRI
Summary: It’s the longest story ever told; four sad little girls burn the world down just because they can and they’re bored and someone somewhere said they couldn’t so they did and they’re all that’s left in the morning after the fire.// Mac centric //





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is a mess im soz

The first movie Veronica ever saw was Karate Kid and it was something fucking else. A little kid who got pushed down and hurt finally, _finally_ , kicking his asshat bully in the chin? Yes-fucking-please. But Veronica doesn’t think she could reach her father’s chin to kick it, but that wasn’t the whole point, was it? No, the Karate Kid himself didn’t do it for the asspounding, he did it for respect. Veronica could do that too. Veronica could leap and pounce, flail her arms about and make all the bad people bleed and that would make her father respect her – no, it would make him love her; not that he doesn’t love her, Veronica thinks, of course her dad loves her but he’d never been good with words, that was it, that’s where the problem lied. Maybe if Veronica learned how to stand like a Crane she could teach her father that maybe, _maybe_ , he could show her love in a different way, maybe in a way that didn’t hurt. Not that Veronica cared, because hugging was for pussies and faggots.

So, Veronica cuts the sleeves off all her t-shirts, cuts her hair with a pair of her father’s scissors, the pair that have the dark stain on it, the stain she wouldn’t ever dare ask about, and slicks her hair back with gasoline she found in the garage because her father could make a man cry with his sleeveless shirt and slicked back hair and Veronica wanted to make someone cry. Because crying was for pussies and faggots and the people that made people cry were never pussies or faggots.

“You look like a fucking dyke,” her mother had grunted, eyes sunken like the devil, mouth turned like an upside-down crucifix. Veronica wonders if God could forgive her for being afraid of her own mother.

She wonders if God could forgive her for a lot of things.

“You smell like a car,” a girl tells Veronica when she’s ten; she’s small and dirty but not in a porn-like way, more in a covered-in-dirt-like way, a wet-animal-like way and it would have made Veronica sick if the way her stomach flipped when the girl smiled didn’t make her sicker, “I like cars.”

Veronica snorts and says: “everyone likes cars”, even though she doesn’t, but her dad likes cars and that seems reason enough to like them too.  

(if she’s being honest, she hates cars because cars in the driveway just mean someone is leaving and it’s the longest story Veronica has ever heard and it always starts with a car and a missing place at the dinner table)

“Wanna go throw rocks at some trains?” The girl asks. Charlie, she says, her names Charlie.

It’s Christmas and Veronica has nowhere else to go so she says yes. They’re ten and it’s the first Christmas that doesn’t feel lonely. It’s the start of the _other_ longest story Veronica’s ever heard; two sad little girls pretending they’re not sad because hey, huffing glue takes up a lot of thinking time and letting childhood traumas fester can distract anyone long enough to allow them to lie to themselves, and they do and it works (and suddenly they’re forty and they’re still just two sad little girls pretending they’re not sad and it works all the same, for the most part).

Suddenly Veronica is Ronnie the Rat trying to convince the cool kids to call her Mac and Denise Reynolds is beautiful and horrible and Mac isn’t sure if she’s falling in love or slowly realising how much she fucking hates Denise Goddamn fucking Reynolds. It all feels the same, her parents had never taught her there was another way for love to feel.

Mac knows she’s fucked for the long-term when, drunk and high, Denise hugs her – fuck you, it was a good hug, if there is such a thing as a hug so good it doesn’t wish it were a kiss. But Denise kisses her too. And Mac cries. And suddenly Mac is a pussy and a faggot and Denise goes to college and leaves Mac behind and it hurts even though it’s not in the least bit fucking surprising. Charlie laughs at her, and she punches Charlie in the mouth but it doesn’t make her feel better; punching people never really made her feel better, she doesn’t know why her father did it so often.

She’s twenty and smoking cheap weed in Charlie’s mum’s basement when Denise and Dee show up. Denise takes her out for dinner in some fancy restaurant, pays for her when she was ready to dine-and-dash, walks her home and insults her, calls her white-trash and wonders, loudly, how her “cigarette for a mother isn’t long dead by now”, Mac doesn’t remember who threw the first punch but they end up bleeding and laughing and Mac had been waiting for this, had been wanting this, had been crying in confessionals at church for this. Denise almost kisses her but turns her face away at the last second, Mac punches her again just to have said she did and they do it all again the next month, and the next month, and the next month until twenty-years of next months’ have passed and they do it again.

Suddenly they own a bar and leaving Philly is a Goddamn experience every time they try and Dee is back-brace free and Charlie is still huffing glue and Denise is diagnosed and Mac loves her and they’re all just sad little girls pretending they aren’t sad and doing a fucking piss-poor job at hiding it.

It’s the longest story ever told; four sad little girls burn the world down just because they can and they’re bored and someone somewhere said they couldn’t so they did and they’re all that’s left in the morning after the fire.

But it's the morning and that's enough.

Mac wonders if Charlie and Dee know everyone knows they're fucking and she wonders if Denise knows she knows Denise knows she wants to fuck her and she wonders why God cares so much about who she wants to fuck but doesn't ask because she's scared. Mac knows when to keep her mouth shut, knows that a girl who likes girls is a dead girl if they talk about it so she doesn't talk about it. Until she talks about it. And it's out. And she's out and she says it grinning but goes home crying. But it doesn't last forever. The next day Mac is poor again but Dee cooks up breakfast and Denise hands Mac a USB full of lesbian porn and Charlie meets her at the door of the bar with a book about gay chicks in history because "you need to learn about your ancestors, man!" and Mac realises that it wasn't the money that helped her sleep.

Sometimes Mac isn't sure what she feels for her mother, knows it's love but isn't sure what love is when it comes to their family but when she tells her mother she is in love and her mother says "tell the girl she better watch out for your stupidity" it is the closest thing to an apology Mac is sure she will ever get and when she gets a letter in the mail from her father saying "what's her name?" Mac ignores the rest of it that talks about drugs and butts and knows it is the closest thing to an _I love you_ she will ever get.

The Gang sit in Dee's apartment, piled together with a mess of blankets and pillows, limbs everywhere and popcorn flying because Tuesday movie night has turned into World War III. Charlie throws an arm around Mac's shoulders, letting Dee fall into her lap. Charlie sends Mac a large grin, nodding down at the blonde in her lap with sparkling eyes. Dee flails her unusually long body, eventually her hand settles on Mac's knee, her fingers play a rhythm against her skin and Mac could listen to it all day if it were just the sound of Charlie and Dee breathing beside each other, Denise muttering softly in her ear. Denise curls against Mac's side. There isn't too much to say.

They scam and they cheat, both others and each other, but Mac thinks being a pussy and a faggot is an okay thing to be, if it means she could stay like this forever.


End file.
